ABSTRACT
The concept of borderwork introduced by Chris Rumford’s work focused attention upon much more of the human behaviour which constitutes or sustains the borders of states. Paralleling the conceptual move to embrace boundaries, one can marry the concept of the boundary to a renewed understanding of the range of human behaviour that is derives from entirely normal practices of human mobility. The conceptual exploration has so far substituted boundary-work for borderwork so as not to presuppose the subtle imposition of state–territorial presuppositions upon the human behaviour that sets boundaries. Sense of normality lends force to the feeling that these ways of behaving and the attendant boundaries are legitimate. On the strength of that contention, the actions of migrants and refugees entail analogous mental-mapping and boundary-work to that of the other categories of actors from nomads to global consumers. If conceived without nationalist blinkers, boundaries within the mental maps of migrants and refugees appear eminently normal–and, in that sense, legitimate.
